In the May 1997 issue, Wired printed a list of “101 Ways to Save Apple“. Reading the list now shows a number of ideas that ended up coming true along with a large number that never happened.

Some of my favorites:

7. Don’t disappear from the retail chains. Rent space in a computer store, flood it with Apple products (especially software), staff it with Apple salespeople, and display everything like you’re a living, breathing company and not a remote, dusty concept.

14. Do something creative with the design of the box and separate yourselves from the pack. The original Macs stood out because of their innovative look. Repeat that. Get the folks at Porsche to design a box. Or Giorgio Giugiaro. Or Philippe Starck. We’d all feel better about shelling out the bucks for a Power Mac 9600 if we could get a tower with leopard spots.

34. Port the OS to the Intel platform, with its huge amount of investment in hardware, software, training, and experience. Don’t ignore it; co-opt it. Operating systems are dependent on installed base; that is your biggest hurdle now. It is not the head-to-head, feature-set comparison between Windows and Mac OS.

37. Take advantage of NeXT’s easy and powerful OpenStep programming tools to entice a new generation of Mac software developers.

76. Make damn sure that Rhapsody runs on an Intel chip. Write a Windows NT emulator for Rhapsody’s Intel version.

Ten years later, Apple Stores are everywhere. The multicolored original iMac was a bona-fide hit. Macs are now based on Intel processors running the NeXTStep-derived Mac OS X…

I don’t think anyone would have ever predicted the massive success of the iPod. When they came out in 2001, my first thought was “who would pay that much for a MP3 player?”, but six years later I’m on my fourth iPod (black 30G iPod Video and a 2nd-generation Shuffle, having previously owned a 1st-gen Shuffle and a 3rd-generation 10G iPod).